Among the problems of seismic exploration during the winter season in the permafrost zones of the world, is that of efficient collection of seismic data in the short time available for such operations. While dynamite and airguns have previously been used as the seismic energy sources in such environments, since about 1980 vibratory sources have been increasingly used to speed operations, i.e., speed collection of the data at receiver arrays spaced over the frozen surface using convention "roll-along" collection techniques. Result: overlapping coverage of the subsurface can be quickly and efficiently provided in most circumstances.
However, recently when exploration activities were redirected from the frozen land mass to the adjacent frozen sea, say from onshore Alaska into the adjacent frozen Beaufort Sea, high noise patterns appeared on the seismic records. Such noise patterns were largely coherent and interfered with desired reflected seismic energy of interest to a substantial degree. Result: seismic reflection data was essentially unusable in many survey situations, especially in shallow transition zones between conventional land and marine collection areas. That is, reflection events on seismic records associated with the transition zone between the frozen permafrost land mass and sea ice of depths of about 20 to 60 feet, were for the most part, undetectable.
While the effect of such noise was widely commented on by geophysicists, the nature of the phenomena, its physical properties as related to the collection of seismic data in the above-identified zones and moreover, how such noise could be attenuated, as far as I am aware, have not been reported on.